Three Button Mouse?

[Tanny]

Today we continue with another great post in my award winning series entitled, "Utterly Clueless New Newbie Questions!"

As I begin to stick my head in to Blender I see many mentions of the three button mouse. Having never owned anything but the most boring of mice, and knowing nothing about Blender, I thought I should ask for advice.

Is there anything special I need to know about three button mice for MakeHuman/Blender?

Or, will something simple and cheap like the mouse in the following link do the job just fine?

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-3-B ... tton+mouse

I'm a bit confused by references to the "middle mouse" and "scroll wheel", and am wondering if a two button mouse with scroll wheel is the same thing as a three button mouse.

Tomorrow I will continue my exciting articles series with a post entitled, "What is an Internet and why do I need one??"

Thanks as always.

[loki1950]

The middle mouse button goes way back to the very first mice from Xerox Park is functions have changed over the years and yes the scroll wheel has replaced the middle button you can press it like a button as well as scroll check out your OS's mouse settings in blender pushing it allows you to rotate the model.For historical references have a look at this Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse .

Enjoy the Choice

[Tanny]

Well, I'm disappointed Loki, because your helpful reply took longer than .004 milliseconds to arrive. You seem to be off your game today, are you feeling alright?

Ok then, so I will upgrade my equipment to 1978 standards and buy a 3 button mouse which is actually only 2 buttons and a wheel, but who's counting? I'm pretty sure that once the new mouse arrives, I will be instantly transformed in to a 3D expert, and the job offers from Disney will start rolling in.

Thanks again!

[loki1950]

Well, I'm disappointed Loki, because your helpful reply took longer than .004 milliseconds to arrive. You seem to be off your game today, are you feeling alright?

Quite well actually sorry for being slow I only sign in about every two hours Even if I'm retired I do have a life

Enjoy the Choice

[RobBaer]

A three button mouse (with wheel) is important in many 3D programs like Blender as well, so owning one is a worthwhile investment, BUT in the meantime, did you know that in MH ...

You can go to [ Settings | Mouse ] and holding down SHIFT, left click the word "middle" next to MOVE. As a result, shift-left click replaces middle mouse button functionality to permit moving in MakeHuman. CTRL (CMD on mac), ALT and other combination of SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT can be used with with either left or right clicking, in any combination, to map custom choices for all the mouse actions. To change mouse actions back to MIDDLE when your new mouse comes, simply go to the same place and MIDDLE click. How fun ...

OT for Blender
BTW, in Blender's user preferences you can also enable a work-around for the 2-button mouse. This is very nice, for example, if working on a laptop with only a 2-button track pad. I think it's FIle | User Preferences | Input tab and then emulate 3 button mouse.